


Prologues

by Adge



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-29 18:56:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20440883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adge/pseuds/Adge





	Prologues

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Stand Still, Stay Silent](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/514028) by Minna Sundberg. 

# SSSS Prologue

## Day 0

Dalsnes, rain-dark, double-streamed fjord hithe,  
Riven from the land by rocks collapsed  
Under ceaseless rain severing the hill-road.   
In a harbour café comrades chatter  
Of the barred town-link and boats for their need  
To reopen trade. Ingrid Pedersen,  
Low-effort hippie, longs for the car-way  
To shut for ever. Aksel, worrier,   
Groans for his kin, grandma alone,  
Her sole company a cat to stroke,  
Threatened by the sickness. Thrawn, sharp-speaking  
Sigrun Larsen would lock the hithe  
From the old and the frommed, over-needy.  
Her wasp-tongue stings worrier Aksel;  
Grandma-anxious Eide grandson  
Dashes rain-drenched to Dalsnes pier  
And to Gunnar's boat. He begs the skipper   
Passage for his nan and her companion cat   
To Dalsnes hithe. His doubt relieved   
Aksel lingers too long on the staithe   
And a whale-big wave whelms the delayer.  
Drenched and fallen he finds his companions  
Laughing at his downfall as they linger at coffee.   
Goran Andersen, awesome-bearded,  
In the papers reads of the rash sickness,  
Of Iceland’s block on incoming folk  
Lest sick workers dissize their wealth;  
How its fast spread, deficient care-skills  
For oldest and babes forebode danger  
Of ill outcoming; Aksel was right  
To fear for his kin. But the four comrades   
Cosy in the hithe, happy at the loss  
Of the land trade-path, look to a time   
Of old ways revived, vikings again   
For a brief sithe till the sickness ends.  
While Gunnar's sea-rider the city reaches   
Recovers Grandma and cat to fetch  
Safe to Dalsnes in sickness days.

## Day 3

Bornholm ferry, bearing skiver  
Cat-friend Michael careless of duty   
For his cat's solace, secretly casts   
To his sister's farm, a safe foldstead.   
Baulks with his phone his boss's anger  
Till the news builds of borders closed   
Of voyages blocked and diverted boats  
To cheat the rage of the rash sickness.  
Michael, panicking, pounds the table  
But rues anger when wrath's demands   
Are mocked to his face by ferry servant   
Signe, sarcastic café assistant.  
But his tears soften Signe's taunting   
Magnus his cat cosies her harshness  
Till Michael and Signe, Madsen-Sørenson  
Face joblessness, joining together   
Their future selves to farm on Bornholm.

## Day 5

Isle-clad Mikkeli, maze-water Saimaa,  
In the wet city where sickness creeps  
Waitress Ainu and unworking Kainu,  
Tight-knit sisters, from contagion masked,  
Meet in the drizzle and drive their car  
To Lumilintu, at the lake-staithe,  
The wave-caressed water-traveller  
That anxious brother Eino uses  
In pleasure time to explore the lakes.  
Painter Eino, anxious brother  
Hotakainen; hoarder, fearful  
Tuuli his soulmate, and son Veeti  
Welcome the sisters, as seasick again,  
Ainu's husband, hopeless Saku,   
Loses his dinner-meat over launch's side.  
Veeti, youngling, is veiled from truth   
But playing games gazes on news  
Of the death-roster of the rash sickness.   
Pregnant Ainu, problems seeing  
Of labour harmed by delayed help  
As hospitals reel when the rash spreads,  
Casts a tantrum calmed by Tuuli.  
Only the cat, cautious, hungry,  
Misu-misu, moggy-guardian,   
Keeps dignity as a cat should.

## Day 9

Snaking hill roads, snowbound, lonely;  
Västerström kin their vehicle fuel   
Where dumped papers deal the tidings   
Of the doom sickness, death world-spreading   
To Stig, husband, stern about money.  
Yet it reaches not Ulrika, wife,  
Their bairn Mia or Bosse, dog,  
Huddling cosy in their car boot.  
Ulf and Elvira, awful gamblers,   
Childish parents, choke conversation  
With stupid demands till Stig, boiling,  
Threatens to stop, throw them snow-wards  
And leave them to walk to the lonely cabin   
Where the Västerströms, avoiding the rash,  
Are planning to share a short holiday   
Till sickness ends and all is normal.

## Month 3

Sea-guards limit the Icelandic risk   
Of the rash sickness. The seas they ward  
With a strong hand and a strict rule.  
Thor, wave-warden, thorough defender,  
Sails the boatroads with sight unbleared.  
Árni Reynisson, unready guard,  
Sees on the radar a restless blip   
That signifies a sea wanderer,   
Little, unarmoured, looking for haven.  
Thor signals the sloop, Icelandic to know   
But the only answer's an outlander wave  
So Thor hammers the hapless boat,  
Her guns shatter the gulls’ companion,  
By death destroys the death sickness.  
But Reynir's son dissents the ravage,   
Nightmare his days, his nights haunted   
By unsated slaughter, the sinless blood   
Staining the sea. Stay he can not.  
He quits, accepts his quarantine   
And vows to forget, to garth his sheep,   
With all Icelanders the lore to erase  
Of the centuries past, of the silent world,  
That one far day all will be well again.


End file.
